Wander Indiana Courtesy of Indiana Dunes…and Me!

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Congratulations Terri DeWulf!! YOU are the winner of the trip!!!I am SO excited to share my latest giveaway with you all! I just love giving things to my friends and what better to share than a weekend trip with dinner, lodging and entertainment! I am excited for YOU!

Recently my family and I had the pleasure of visiting The Indiana Dunes area near Chesterton, Indiana. It was a dream trip. No shopping, no tourist traps, just fun in the sun and playing on the beautiful beaches of Lake Michigan. Read more about our trip, and where YOU can go too HERE.

In partnership with the Indiana Dunes Visitors Center I am giving the following ‘Family Getaway’ package to one lucky reader! Entering will be simple with several ways to get your name in the hat! Please read my POST about our trip so you can see all of the pictures I took….This is where YOU will be going too 🙂*One night stay for you and your family at The Inn at Aberdeen in Valparaiso, one of the best B&B’s I have ever stayed in,also has a fantastic breakfast in the morning! AND it’s included!*1 $50 gift card for dinner at Lucrezia Cafe in Chesterton, really good food, great atmosphere!*4 passes to TalTree Arboreum and Gardens-home of the COOLEST train garden EVER!!

5 minutes after we got there…..

After a fun day at the beach we got all dressed up for dinner out!

My son’s meaty meatballs at Lucrezia

First course of breakfast at Aberdeen

Aberdeen, simply beautiful!

One of the thematic gardens of TalTree

Trains. Too cool, this picture doesn’t do it justice!

How to enter:Leave a comment below, you must do this for every entry separately. Do any one or all of these daily for more entries, it’s up to you! Please make sure this trip is possible in your future before you enter and please leave a contact email address in your comments so I can find you. You will have 24 hours to respond or I will have to chose someone else 🙁

Giveaway runs Tuesday July 10-Sunday July 15th at 9 pm EST!!*Visit one of the websites listed (using the links in their names) and tell me one fact you got from their website. I will check too, so be original! Each comment is an entry.*Tweet the following” @Basilmomma is giving away a family getaway courtesy of

Heather! This is so cool!!! We take the commuter train from Chesterton into Chicago all the time and every time we go we say we want to come back to enjoy the dunes and the town and the inns - this is awesome!!!

From the Dunes website...Without fire, there could be no prairie at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Non-prairie plant species would crowd out native prairie grasses. These rare grasslands are maintained through periodic controlled burns.

What a great family trip! I have fond memories of a childhood trip to Indiana Dunes, and I'm sure your boys will have the same fondness for theirs when they look back. I would love to check out the TalTree Arboretum & Gardens. My father was a HUGE railroad fan. He was one of the original WhiteWater Valley RR crew to clear the tracks for the trains from Metamora to Brookville & Connersville and was a conductor on the run from Metamora to Connersville for several years. I have an awesome picture of him kind of hanging out of the steps of a car in his conductor's black suit/hat...so a trip to TalTree would be wonderful for me. I love that the landmark was created by stacking the limestone that's native to this part of the country (my little fact :-)! Phase 1 would have been a dream for my dad. He was in love with the steam locomotives! Sorry to be so lengthy, but this stuff is near & dear...

The Inn at Aberdeen has a Design Your Own Special Gift Package. That's pretty cool. You select the number of nights, the number of dinner vouchers, rounds of golf, spa voucher, and Lyn's Boutique certificate.